Image forming devices such as copiers, printers, facsimile machines, and the like, produce residual toner that is not used during the printing process. This residual toner should be removed from the image transfer area and stored in storage location. The storage location should be sized to hold an adequate amount of the waste toner prior to removal from the image forming device. One solution is to provide a large capacity waste toner reservoir that can hold a large amount of waste toner. However, it is desirable for the overall size of the image forming device to be as small as possible. Therefore, a mechanism is needed to maximize the amount of waste toner that can be stored within a waste toner reservoir.
The waste toner mechanism should utilize a majority of the storage space within the waste toner reservoir. Previous designs often need to be replaced prior to the majority of the storage capacity being filled by waste toner. This was often caused because there was no mechanism for directing the waste toner throughout the reservoir. Further, the waste toner mechanism should be constructed to prevent waste toner from leaking from the waste toner reservoir.
Many previous waste toner reservoirs were positioned with the reservoir inlet being positioned at the upper reaches of the waste toner reservoir. These designs could utilize gravity to cause the waste toner to fall into the reservoir without the need for any additional waste toner mechanism to move and direct the toner. However, with the demand for smaller overall sizes for the image forming devices, space constraints may not allow for the waste toner to be introduced into an upper section of the waste toner reservoir. Therefore, some mechanism is needed to move the toner from a toner inlet at a lower section of the waste toner reservoir into other, vertically higher areas.